


everything could yield him pleasure

by middlemarch



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: Backstory, Christmas, F/M, Family, Male-Female Friendship, Post-Series, Profanity, Romance, a Sam Sylvia Christmas, a way for Season 4 to have begun, apology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Later, he'd admit he decided to come during midnight Mass, as the choir began to sing Adeste Fideles.
Relationships: Cherry Bang & Sam Sylvia, Justine Biagi & Sam Sylvia, Sam Sylvia/Ruth Wilder
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	everything could yield him pleasure

The doorbell trilled when he rang it, which was a fucking relief, because Sam really didn’t see how banging on the front door at 2pm on Christmas Day could be a good beginning. Or even an okay one, because no one was ever expecting anyone who’d actually make a racket with a door-knocker on a major holiday, and he wasn’t anticipating getting a merry response to the sight of his face.

“Sam? What—what’re you doing here?” Ruth said. She looked mostly blank, which was a far cry from merry or pleased, but was also a decent distance from disgusted. Or hostile. Besides blank, she looked pretty good, though to be honest, he was comparing her now to the last time he’d seen her when she’d been red-eyed, pale, trembling, tearstains apparent when she was under a streetlight. She was wearing a sweater that was aggressively Fair Isle over a blouse with a ruffled collar and cuffs and an Omaha department store’s version of a tweed skirt instead of the usual sweatshirt and jeans he was used to seeing her in (unless she was in full make-up and that scrap of metallic red fabric she called a leotard as Zoya and yeah, he thought of her that way but not the majority of the time, which he used as evidence he wasn’t a total prick.)

“Would you believe me if I said I came to say Merry Christmas?” he asked. It was about twelve fucking degrees out and he was in a leather jacket and jeans but he was still stalling for time because even though he’d had plenty of advance notice, unlike Ruth, he wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted to say. Or how.

“No,” she said. “Why’re you here—is someone hurt? Justine, is she okay?”

“She’s fine, we went to midnight Mass with Rosalie’s family and I left her there for Christmas morning, presents and shit,” Sam said. Ruth had seemed genuinely concerned about Justine, even though the audition had been a fucking fiasco—or rather, the aftermath had been, which wasn’t really on Justine’s head but his own.

“I don’t get it—” Ruth began.

“Ruth dear, who’s at the door? Did Aunt Marion decide to come after all?” a woman’s voice called out. It was funny how it sounded just like Ruth and not at all the same; Sam wondered whether anyone would ever think the same thing about him and Justine or whether he would have had to raise her since she was born for something like that to happen. There was an approaching sound of high heels and a sudden, frantic look in Ruth’s eyes.

“No, Mom, it’s just someone who needs directions. I’ll be right back,” she said, pulling the door closed behind her.

“That’s a fucking believable excuse around here?” Sam said. “That you’d give directions to a complete stranger. On Christmas Day.”

“Yeah, it is,” Ruth said, crossing her arms in front of her. “I didn’t think you’d want to try to talk inside and it would be impossible for us to get a moment alone.”

“Can we talk in the car if I promise not to kidnap you? It’s fucking cold out here,” Sam said. He refrained from any mention of a witch’s tit, but it had crossed his mind.

“Okay. I can’t be very long,” Ruth said. “Eventually, they’ll come looking for me. Uncle Rudy is telling the Christmas ham of 1957 story and they’re on round one of the egg-nog and my brother Jack hasn’t spiked it enough yet.”

“That’s fine,” Sam said, opening the car door for her which she obviously hadn’t expected. He walked around to the driver’s side and got in, turning the car on to run the heat. Ruth wasn’t wearing a coat and he might as well not be, for all the warmth the leather jacket provided.

“It doesn’t smell like your car,” Ruth said. She was about as far away as she could be, pressed up against the window like she was about to make a run for it. 

“It’s a rental. I’ve only had it a few hours. It takes a while to get that funk of cigarettes and fucking up your life really worked into the upholstery,” Sam said.

“So, are you going to tell me now, why you came?” she said, her blue eyes shadowed, apprehensive. It was like the expression she’d had when she’d asked if it was too late for them, before they’d made a good stab at breaking each other’s hearts.

“To say I’m sorry,” he replied.

“You could’ve called to say that. But you flew out here, on Christmas. You came to my parents’ house,” she said. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to see your face. Because I didn’t know when you were coming back to LA and if you’d agree to meet me. Because it’s fucking Christmas and I wanted to be with the person I care about the most, even if she doesn’t want to see me for more than five minutes,” Sam said.

“What are you sorry about?” Ruth said, not touching anything else he’d said in a hard-ass move he would have applauded her for if it weren’t his fucking heart he’d just ripped out and offered to her on a silver platter with fucking mistletoe for garnish.

“Driving away. That goddamn audition. Not answering when you sent all those notes from Vegas about the show,” he said. He didn’t mention his heart attack or how he’d kept it a secret; he hadn’t told anyone, not Justine, not Cherry. If he told Ruth now, he was sure that would be it for them. Him. Maybe that made him a fucking coward; he could live with that. “Cherry was horrified when I told her what happened.”

“You talked to Cherry about it? About us?” she asked. She’d said us, which was a hopeful sign. Still, he was Sam Sylvia and he’d learned not to hope when he was fully capable of cocking up even a sure thing which this emphatically was not.

“Yeah, she and Keith went back to LA after the last show,” he said. Cherry had had a lot to say about everything from the failed audition “you invited Ruth up there and then didn’t cast her at all, after everything, you couldn’t find some role for her in Justine’s movie?” to his choice to leave Ruth after their fight “woman you say you love’s hurt, you did it and you fucking leave her? Even Debbie showed up in the hospital after she broke Ruth’s leg.” Cherry hadn’t had much patience with his explanations about how it was Justine’s movie and how Ruth should have trusted him, shaking her head at him before reminding him of the notes Ruth had sent “for months, you fucker, no one else gave a damn about your opinion after you ditched us” and how however his feelings had been hurt, he’d pretty clearly put himself or his kid first and let Ruth know it. And then let her play Scrooge-Zoya to a packed house that didn’t include him.

“You wouldn’t have come on your own,” Ruth said.

“Probably not, because I’m a fucking moron,” Sam said. “I can appreciate good advice though. Occasionally. And Cherry and Keith managed to salvage their relationship.”

“She knew he loved her,” Ruth said.

“She did,” Sam agreed. Ruth looked at him, waiting to see if he was going to make some argument, some defense or quip or something, anything. She was beautiful, even in the outrageous sweater, and he wanted her, loved her, and he knew if this was going anywhere, she was the one who had to say something next. He had to be patient, for once, and attempt not to be a selfish dick. To be the same guy she’d called when she was in trouble, who she listened to when he told her to take another card from the dealer and when to stay.

“Why did you come, Sam?” she asked again, unsmiling, serious. So fucking lovely.

“Because I love you,” he said.

“And—”

“There is no fucking and. Or but. That’s it. I love you, Ruth,” he said. It might not be enough but it was all there was.

And then she reached over and touched his hand. Then his cheek, stroked the hair above his ear, her fingers very gentle, very sure.

“Show me,” she said. “You can start with a kiss.”

He didn’t need to be told twice.

“Everyone inside is wearing a sweater like mine, just in different colors,” Ruth warned him. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were literally fucking shining softly like she’d come to life from a Christmas carol and they were sprawled across the car’s bench seat with Ruth’s head cradled in the crook of his arm. It had been about fifteen minutes since he’d told her he loved her and it hadn’t gone to hell. It was a new record and a Christmas miracle; it would also be a miracle if he kept from coming in his pants if she kept looking at him that way. “My mother knits them for us every year. It’s a tradition.”

“Like a serious one?” he asked, shifting a little, trying to think about Ruth’s mother and yarn and nothing as erotic as the feeling of Ruth’s skin under that stupid sweater and the taste of her in his mouth, how easy it would be to ease that skirt up to her waist and lay her back...

“As the grave. Well, not to my father, he thinks they’re hilarious but he’s the only one who can get away with saying anything about it,” Ruth said. “She gets back at him by making his the most garish.”

“Sounds nice,” he said, realizing it was true.

“Sam, what happens next?” she asked.

“After Uncle Rudy and helping Jack spike the egg-nog and me not losing my shit seeing Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Fair Isle Winter sweater line or embarrassing myself having a hard-on for you at Christmas dinner? You mean after that?” he asked. He left out getting caught kissing her while they washed the dishes or whatever fucking talk he was going to have with Ruth’s father who was probably only about five years older than he was; neither was very funny and they both were going to happen and he didn’t want Ruth to stop smiling at him. He leaned over and kissed the apple of her cheek, the corner of her mouth.

“You come home with me. If you want to. And we figure it out,” he said.

“Figure what out?” she said.

“Your acting career, my directing, how we’re going to keep from killing each other writing the next screenplay we’re going to end up collaborating on, how we’re going to keep from killing each other sharing a bathroom, how I’m going to keep making you happy,” he said.

“So, you mean everything,” she replied.

“Damn straight,” he said. “Now can I say Merry Christmas?”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from A Christmas Carol.


End file.
